The present invention relates generally to an information processing apparatus, an image display control method, and an image display control program. More particularly, the present invention is intended to control the motions of an image to be displayed in accordance with the reproduction of music information by detecting from music information a point at which a tune change takes place and/or a climax section of music, selecting image motion information on the basis of the result of the detection, and using the selected image motion information in accordance with the reproduction of the music information.
As information processing apparatuses diminish in size and weight and are enhanced in performance, portable information processing apparatuses have come to a wide use, for which various services are provided. One of these services is the music information distribution in which music information is distributed to mobile phones and the like which are portable information processing apparatuses, for example. Use of this service allows the setting of the ringing tone of each mobile phone to a desired music tone based on the downloaded music information. Also, in the music information distribution, the distribution of play data files based on the MIDI (Musical Instruments Digital Interface) standard much smaller in data amount as compared with normal music data (or streaming data) is practiced, these files including files such as based on SMF (Standard MIDI File) proposed by US Opcode Systems, Inc., SMAF (Synthetic music Mobile Application Format) proposed by Yamaha Corporation, General MIDI Lite proposed by Association of Musical Electronics Industry, and Compact MIDI for example.
Further, in the reproduction of the above-mentioned play data, a character display operation is executed. For example, patent document 1 shown below discloses that a character is assigned with a rhythm component which it is good at and is related to its unique posture expressing capability in advance, a frequency band clocking a rhythm is identified from the music data, the rhythm component is estimated from the variation in sound pressure data, and the posture expression capability is cumulatively varies in accordance with the estimated rhythm component, thereby varying the displayed posture of the character. Patent document 2 shown below discloses that a volume level and a frequency level are computed by analyzing the waveform data of sound data and the motion information for use in dance animation such as choreographic data and formations on the basis of the computed volume and frequency levels is varied, thereby executing animation displays having different motions for different signals to be reproduced. Further, patent document 3 shown below discloses that the speed of animated actions is controlled in accordance with BPM indicative of the tempo of music, thereby executing image display with rhythmic sense without preparing the animation having a action speed matched with each piece of music.
[Patent document 1]
Japanese Patent Application No. 3066528
[Patent document 2]
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-118084
[Patent document 3]
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-269483
However, problems with the above-mentioned related art technologies lie in that, when music is reproduced on the basis of music information, controlling the motions of a character simply on the basis of the rhythm component, volume and frequency levels, and BPM indicative of tempo may make the motion variations monotonous, thereby making it impossible to execute the display operations which are excellent in entertainment and visual effects in accordance with music information.
To be more specific, musical compositions have each a plurality of tune change points and is formed by, for example, “introduction” indicative of the beginning of music, “verse” indicative of the beginning of the entire melody, “chorus” indicative of climax section of music, “bridge” which links “verse” with “chorus”, and “ending” which indicates the end section of music. For this reason, the levels of entertainment and visual effects cannot be enhanced unless not only a character moves in accordance with particular musical compositions but also character motions correspond to the forms of particular musical compositions.